Inscribed In All The Corners of My Heart
by shyath
Summary: Femslash. Quinn/Rachel. When did you and I turn into us? How is it that I now find you inscribed in all the corners of my heart?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee. Seriously.

**Spoilers/Warnings: **Just to be safe, all aired episodes, AU, babygate, established Finn/Rachel, established Quinn/Sam.

**A/N: **Thank you to air_one_23 and a few other unnamed friends for making sure that this chapter is post-worthy. I hope everyone will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I adore Quinn/Rachel and it is my new mission in life to spread the sentiment! Also, reviews would make me and the muse very, very happy. Cheers!

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The development of a genuine understanding of sorts – for to describe whatever was happening between the two of them as anything more or deeper than that would be foolishly optimistic and simply tempting one Quinn Fabray to revert to her HBIC persona – had taken everyone aback. They knew that Quinn had forgiven Rachel for hastening the inevitable demise of what remained of her relationship with Finn and they also woefully noted that Rachel had persisted in being true to her nature. The logical collusion of the two factors would not make a budding friendship between the newly reinstated head cheerleader and the pint-sized diva at all possible, but consider the following and attempt to comprehend the situation.

Quinn had walked in late for Biology and Rachel, unsurprisingly enough, had been the only one left unpaired for the month-long assignment they had just been given. Santana had offered Quinn a mildly sympathetic look before she remembered that she was supposed to be furious with the blonde. Brittany was waving enthusiastically at Quinn before she was promptly stopped with a glare from Santana. Rachel had looked up from her notebook and offered Quinn the empty seat next to hers. Quinn thought of protesting, but figured she could chalk it up as her one good deed for the day. The aging Biology teacher beamed at the two of them and proceeded to proclaim them the last group and allocated the only remaining topic: human anatomy. Quinn blanched, Rachel winced and the two began a fight so tellingly half-hearted from its lack of aggression and the speed with which they ultimately accepted their fate with minimal genuine fuss.

The eager audience that their class had been was petrified into first silence and then launched into a hushed bout of wild speculation, Santana was later reported to have made her first visit to church in years, Brittany took to carrying around a duck plushie for protection, Puck steered clear of both Rachel and Quinn, screaming like a girl when the two of them approached him simultaneously, and Finn remained as blissful as ever until he ran into an open locker door at the sight of Rachel and Quinn holding a civil conversation without the presence of an intermediary.

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Quinn would never admit it aloud, not even under threat of another dishonourable discharge from the Cheerios, but she enjoyed spending time with Rachel. A few months earlier and she would have been willing to commit murder had someone even had the nerve to suggest the possibility to her. Granted she had been more than a little wary when they were arbitrarily thrown together for the Biology assignment and she might have expected the worst the first time she stepped foot in the Berry household, but the combination of a perfectly pleasant Rachel and her disappointingly agreeable room (_"I am both impressed and slightly let down that your room is so normal."_) had finally calmed Quinn down somewhat that, the next time Quinn came by for one of their study sessions, the blonde no longer felt the urge to turn around and run home on foot if required.

Quinn had heard enough stories from the rest of the Glee kids to formulate a general picture of what Rachel in person might be like, but the brunette was nothing like what Quinn had built her up (or down, depending on one's perspective) to be. She was a decidedly more subdued presence without an audience and Quinn had come to understand, recognise and respect that every waking moment of Rachel's life was an opportunity for her talent to shine and – _dear God, how is it even possible for so much of it to be successfully contained in such a tiny frame?_ Quinn was not quite sure what to make of Rachel evidently not considering her enough of a spectator to expend her efforts on.

The diva retained those qualities that the rest of the school found vexing and Quinn was slowly discovering to be endearing. Still, there was a decided restraint to the volume of Rachel's voice, a check on the expansive gestures she routinely employed, a sparkle in the brown eyes that Quinn had never before seen directed at anyone else, that made her feel strangely special to be on the receiving end.

The most glaring distinction, Quinn had determined, was the way Rachel sang. She sang softly, starkly, with a rawness that the Rachel Berry on stage or in school or amidst Glee Club could never (or would never) muster. The Rachel Berry in private was a Rachel Berry not a soul was meant to bear witness to. Quinn had simply been lucky enough to find herself in the right place to catch that very same Rachel singing under her breath (as if she were exhaling a secret and hoping the very air would not tell on her) as they toiled away on a potential outline for their project despite Quinn's express warning that Rachel better not disrupt her focus with an impromptu rendition or two of some obscure musical number.

Quinn had literally been rendered speechless and the thought of telling Rachel to shut up did not even cross her mind. She had always begrudgingly acknowledged Rachel's talent and she had also secretly taken a liking to Rachel's singing since joining Glee Club, but nothing had prepared her for the force of nature Rachel had revealed herself to be. So, it became her guilty pleasure – listening to Rachel sing under her breath while Quinn pretended to work. _She's not singing show tunes after all_, was how Quinn justified this allowance to herself.

Quinn paused her writing once again as she strained to make out the words that Rachel was crooning with an intimacy that would not be at all out of place in a much less platonic context, with someone other than Quinn listening in. Quinn had, by now, enough provisions in her mental arsenal (and the reality of Rachel singing just a few feet away from her helped a lot) to imagine how it would feel like to have Rachel singing love and forever directly into her ear and how, with no physical distance separating the two of them, easily Quinn could lean forward and brush her lips against –

The tip of Quinn's pencil broke against the surface of her notebook as the thought registered more completely. Her cheeks were inflamed with dawning realisation and she scrambled to process _that _most unwelcome notion (she was fervently ignoring the shy voice in the back of her mind claiming otherwise), but failing spectacularly to utilise her extensive repertoire of Fabray-approved excuses for the circumstance at hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee. Seriously.

**A/N:** I am so, so sorry, everyone, that I took ages to post this. I also apologise in advance for any mistakes because this chapter is un-beta-ed. I was just so excited to finish writing it and wanted to share it as quickly as possible (plus, I've been a bit ill, so I wanted to cheer myself up and nothing's better than a shot of Faberry, right?). So, please, please review – you'll make my day and (since I'm on break after this week) chapter 3 may just come out sooner (ooh, evil me). Thank you and hope it meets your expectations!

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Quinn's eventual, most reluctant acknowledgement of wanting Rachel in that manner (of wanting _Rachel_, period) was a disconcerting experience at best, a frightening revelation at the worst. The knowledge perched heavily with the weight of a thousand complications in the back of her throat, burned with the vengeance of irony behind her closed eyelids, tickled and tingled and pricked at her fingertips with something akin to inevitability (but she knew, she _knew_ that simply could not be) and Quinn had to consciously struggle to retain some semblance of control.

She snapped her eyes open and whipped her head about in a desperate hunt for something, for anything that could serve as an adequate – no, as a passable justification for her evident loss of rationality and emotional composure, but nothing, there was _nothing_ she could hang on to.

The pale yellow of the wallpaper mocked her, the alphabetised rows upon rows of DVDs and books and laminated playbills patronised her, the gently ticking clock kindly informed her that the entire duration of her identity crisis had not taken up more than a measly quarter of an hour.

Then there was Rachel: Rachel who remained oblivious to what Quinn had just been subjected to, Rachel who continued to sing under her breath and upend Quinn's world like she knew nothing else ever had (ever would).

Quinn had this immediate, overwhelming urge to divulge _everything_ to Rachel – she wanted (needed) to apologise and make amends for everything that had been and make promises for everything that could be, to close this intolerable distance between the two of them and hold on to Rachel and never ever let go. _But no, there is no future together to consider, there cannot be any future together to daydream about – because there is no _us_ and there are most certainly no feelings to confess to begin with!_

Except there were (and Quinn dared not even attempt to comprehend her abrupt indulgence in a sentiment as positive as l-lo-_fondness_) and she felt herself shaking as her thoughts collided spectacularly, as the strange feelings she now had for Rachel thump in time with her uncooperative heart, pulse to an irresponsible beat through her veins and come to a stop at her cheeks in a burst of warmth.

And if she had been anything like the old Quinn – if she were still the Head Cheerio, the Head Bitch in Charge, the queen of William McKinley High School; if she were the Quinn Fabray prior to an unplanned pregnancy and all the ramifications that brought – she could have effortlessly compared the potency of these novel emotions to poison, to a curse, to _an abomination_.

(And who would fault her for promptly hearing her father's disapproving – always disapproving voice corroborating that line of thought: _the first step to improvement is accepting your imperfections, Quinn; understand that you are in the wrong and you will be on the path toward redemption._)

The only problem was that she was _nothing_ like the old Quinn. She was the Quinn Fabray who was wholeheartedly attempting to become a better person, who realised how much corn syrup hurt, who knew firsthand how it felt like to be a loser.

She was the Quinn Fabray with a string of broken hearts in her trail; the Quinn Fabray who placed hesitant hands on an oddly flat abdomen every single night, stroking the space where her baby used to be. She was the Quinn Fabray who could not help but torture herself with visions of what-ifs, who fell asleep only to wake up in cold sweats with strangled sobs choking her airway and Beth's name whimpered from well-bitten lips.

Most tellingly, perhaps, she was the Quinn Fabray who practically lived to hear a petite brunette sing, who committed to memory all the brief moments she got to spend with the same brunette in isolation.

"Quinn?" Rachel's voice was soft and tentative, vacillating the way it always did after an especially spirited performance between breathlessness and a quiver – and it was like a douse of cold water, a jolt of heat; and it struck _that_ spot in Quinn's chest, high and a few notches to the left, with such force that it left Quinn gasping silently, made her look away before she did something (even more) embarrassing. "Are you not feeling well? You seem a bit flushed. Maybe I should -"

Quinn would (should) have been content to sit there and deflect Rachel's misplaced concern (she could just picture the shock on Rachel's face should she discover how Quinn felt _exactly_). She was a Fabray after all and fabrication was, for all intents and purposes, the first thing she learned.

Only Rachel shifted and moved and made like she was about to reach out to Quinn and the blonde had yet to prepare herself for their now unbearable proximity, which had her jumping to her feet and out of Rachel's range and immediately scrambling to gather her things to avoid Rachel's slightly wounded gaze.

"I have to go," she whispered thinly, cursing herself for somehow managing to get her belongings _everywhere_ and therefore taking much longer than strictly necessary to leave. The silence dragged on and Quinn considered repeating herself in case Rachel did not catch her words, but she was aware of how manic she must look to the brunette at the moment and she did not relish attempting that which could only exacerbate the situation. She wondered in passing (_aha! there you are, pencil_) if Rachel would think it essential to recommend her to a therapist –

"Right. Of course." Was it just Quinn's eyes or did Rachel's beam seem more muted? "We have been working for a reasonably lengthy period. It is vital to take a break to rest the mind after all." Rachel stood up to join a skittish Quinn by the doorway. "Shall I walk you to the door, Quinn?" Rachel offered politely.

Quinn shook her head frantically, holding her backpack before her like it was a shield. "No!" she yelled before she could stop herself, wincing at the quick flash of rejection before Rachel adopted a more neutral expression. "No, Rachel, it's not like that. There's just no need for you to go down with me, see? I mean, I know the way out by now. I think. In any case, you don't have to tire yourself out – that is _not_ to say you wouldn't be able to do something as simple as -"

Quinn bit down on her tongue. At least Rachel looked more amused and slightly perplexed now. "I'm not usually like this, sorry." She smiled weakly, gratified when Rachel returned the gesture. "I'm just really tired. Coach was crazy – well, crazier than usual today. I think I should just go home and get an early night. I'm really sorry, Rach." She was almost impressed with herself for remaining stoic when confronted with the full calibre of Rachel Berry's smile at the unexpected endearment (that little voice in the back of her mind was a liar and there was _no_ butterflies in her stomach at the favourable reaction to her slip of the tongue, not at all). "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Rachel fluttered her lashes at Quinn. "It's absolutely all right, Quinn."

Quinn swallowed thickly. "Right. Well, I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

Rachel nodded. "I hope you feel better, Quinn."

"Bye, Rach."

"Goodbye, Quinn."

Quinn directed another strained smile at a glowing Rachel before sprinting down the stairs, out of the house and into her car. She had barely tossed her bag onto the backseat before her car screeched out of Rachel's driveway. The frenzied blonde stepped on the gas even more as she hurtled down thankfully vacant streets, needing the respite that came from hours of aimless driving.

Quinn did not actually make it home until it was much, _much_ later and even the recently single, proudly independent Judy Fabray could not stay _current_ and reverted to being parental. However, all Quinn could be aware of as Judy mentioned "grounding" and "worried" was the very same thing she had had on constant repeat since leaving Rachel's: _I like Rachel Berry. I _like_ like Rachel Berry. Oh god, I cannot like Rachel Berry!_

It only got worse when the sly voice in her head gained momentum and volume as she trudged up the stairs to her room:_ but why can't you?_


End file.
